Parents may not notice when children are overweight

(Reuters Health) – Many parents don’t realize when their children are overweight and so they fail to help the youngsters shed excess pounds, an Australian study suggests.

When researchers asked parents to report their child’s height and weight, the results suggested that about 16% of the kids were overweight and 6% were obese.

But when parents were asked if their child’s weight was healthy or unhealthy, only about 8% said they had overweight kids and only 0.2% reported an obese child.

And parents who didn’t recognize a weight problem in their children were less likely to take steps aimed at solving the problem, said study co-author Dr. Christina Pollard, of the Department of Health in Western Australia and Curtin University School of Public Health in Perth.

“The inaction based on misguided perception is of major concern,” Pollard said by email. “Taking action to improve diet and physical activity during childhood can help children avoid a lifetime of being overweight or obese.”

Pollard and colleagues reviewed data collected from 4,437 parents from 2009 to 2012 as part of the Western Australia Health and Wellbeing Surveillance System. Children ranged in age from five to 15.

It’s also possible that some parents didn’t truthfully report their perceptions about their child’s weight in the survey, noted Davene Wright, a researcher at Seattle Children’s Research Institute and the University of Washington.

“Someone who recognizes that their child is overweight may not be willing to say so, even in an anonymous survey,” Wright, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.

“Part of the problem may be that parents are worried about being labeled `bad parents.’ Additionally, parents of overweight children may hope that their child will `grow out of it’ or that their height will catch up to their weight,” Wright added.